The design of effective aid programs depends on the diagnosis of the problem. To say that institutional failures are central to Africa's poor economic performance is not to repudiate early interpretations based on policy failures and capital shortages. Institutional failures produce policy...

This paper examines the (non) equivalance between aid flows and trade preferences as alternative forms of donor assistance in the presence of learning-by-doing externalities in recipient country export production. Using a two-period model based on vanWijnbergen (1985), in which the productivity...

This paper sets out to provide an introduction to two sets of questions, and to some relevant literature that has tried to answer them. The first set of questions concern what determines growth in low-income countries, and how the answers are conditioned by the history of fiscal policy design...

Probably the most enduring result in the theory of optimum income taxation is that, for a sufficiently thin upper tail to the skill distribution, the marginal tax rate should fall rather than rise with income. This paper shows that this result is highly sensitive to a very strong informational...

This paper sets out to provide an introduction to two sets of questions, and to some relevant literature that has tried to answer them. The first set of questions concern what determines growth in low-income countries, and how the answers are conditioned

The moral philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas offers a prospectus of stark impossibility for any programme of business or corporate ethics. It differs from most traditional ethical theories in that for Levinas the ethical develops in a personal meeting of one with the other, rather than residing in...

This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and the budget deficit, which depends on the specifics of country’s economic structure, and the trade regime which is being liberalized. It relates some popular but incomplete approaches to assessing this issue (such as analysis...

Drawing on evidence from Africa - especially Ethiopia and Uganda - the authors of this volume draw conclusions about economic policy in the aftermath of civil war. A sample of conclusions follows. Civil wars differ from international wars. They are informal, often have no clear beginning and...

We examine the properties of alternative monetary policy rules in response to large aid surges in low-income countries characterized by incomplete capital market integration and currency substitution. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, we show that simple monetary rules that...

We examine the role and nature of external influences (US as well as German) and changing institutional constraints upon UK monetary policy by estimating Taylor-type reaction functions for three subperiods: 1985-90 (pre-ERM), 1992-97 (post-ERM) and 1997-2000 (MPC). We identify and contrast...